John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth and the oldest human to travel into space, died today at 95 years old.
Today, we join the world in mourning the passing of legendary astronaut, senator and Ohioan John Glenn. https://t.co/L66WmMJgHi pic.twitter.com/ny3NPpm0nk
— Ohio State (@OhioState) December 8, 2016
Glenn was hospitalized over a week ago at the The James Cancer… Read More

BuzzFeed has a new vice president leading its data science team.
Gilad Lotan has a long résumé in the field, having most recently served as chief data scientist at New York-based startup studio Betaworks, and before that working in data-related roles at SocialFlow, Microsoft and Endemol.
Publisher Dao Nguyen told me that this is a new role at BuzzFeed — the closest equivalent being… Read More

Today on “Today,” Sheryl Sandberg dismissed Facebook’s role in the 2016 presidential election. Still, she didn’t want you to forget that Facebook plays a relevant part in political and social movements, just not in a way that went on to influence the results of the most divisive election in modern American history.
“People come to Facebook to share what matters… Read More

The education world has been transformed thanks to the power of technology. But not all communities have been privy to the benefits; low-income students are still shut out of the edtech revolution. The digital divide is no longer just about connectivity. Many edtech startups are not designed with the specific needs of low-income, under-connected kids in mind. That’s where nonprofits come in. Read More

Just as Twitter has struggled to find the right business model to grow faster and make profits, so, it seems, have some of the business ideas that have been built on the platform. Today NBC said that, effective December 31, it would be closing down Breaking News, a social media newswire service that (surprise) delivers breaking news headlines, best known for its rapid-fire Twitter account… Read More

French startup Molotov launched five months ago, but a key feature had yet to go live. Molotov users can now bookmark TV shows and movies in the cloud so that they can watch them later. That’s not all, the startup has also raised $23.3 million (€22 million).
I’ve already written quite a few words about Molotov, but it’s worth reiterating that it’s the best way to watch… Read More

Nationally, bars today lose billions of dollars from improperly managed alcohol inventory. These losses add up quickly as a result of oversized pours, spills and even theft.
Nectar, a stealth connected-device startup operating out of a Palo Alto dentist’s office (of all places), just locked down a $4.55 million seed funding round from the likes of Joe Lonsdale (8VC + Palantir), Lior… Read More

Hulu today is launching a new feature that will make its service more appealing to those who share their account with other family members: user profiles. Starting today, the TV streaming service will begin to roll out to its more than 12 million subscribers the option to enable profiles. A user account can have up to six individual profiles attached, the company says.
The launch… Read More

Vida Health, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based subscription-based app that pairs patients with health coaches, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Canvas Ventures, with participation from Nokia Growth and earlier backers Aspect Ventures and Khosla Ventures.
What’s everyone investing in, exactly? Well, a big market for starters. The Centers for Disease Control and… Read More

Comments on Facebook posts can get quite chatty, so Facebook is trying a new way to help you keep up. Some users now see comment reels appearing as persistently visible chat windows that pop up on their desktop versions of the site, just like traditional message threads.
TechCrunch reader Russell Smith sent us this screenshot. Facebook confirmed to us this is a new feature test on desktop for… Read More

A new video app from Hyper wants to help you catch up on the latest news during your commute. What’s interesting about Hyper News, compared with apps from traditional news publishers, is that it has been specifically designed so you can watch its videos even when there is no internet connection available. This makes it ideal for people who travel on the subway to work, or for… Read More

There are plenty of apps out there that purport to keep you “safe.” Apps that immediately phone your main contacts when you are threatened or attacked. Apps that allow you to share your location with key contacts. But for modern women, especially in big urban cities like New York or London, who would really rather not share literally all that stuff and perhaps find it all a bit… Read More

European startup studio eFounders is raising an additional $5.3 million (€5 million) from entrepreneurs and family offices. eFounders has been behind some very promising software-as-a-service startups, providing human and financial resources for the first year or so before the startups can go and do great things on their own. In exchange, the startup studio takes a significant portion of… Read More

Facebook is launching a series of new features to help people customize their photos and videos in the social network’s continuing battle with Snapchat, an app that put the camera, photos and video at the front-and-center of social interactions. Today, Facebook is unveiling a new tool that will allow anyone, including Facebook Page owners, to create custom profile frames for… Read More

The digital music marriage that many wanted to happen isn’t happening after all. Spotify has given up on its latest effort to buy SoundCloud following months of talks between the two, according to a source at Spotify who is familiar with discussions. Read More

Google today announced that all developers (and not just those in its private preview program), can start bringing their applications and services to the Google Assistant, starting with what the company calls “conversation actions” on Google Home. This allows developers to create back-and-forth conversations with users through the Assistant and users can simply start these… Read More

Hardware kits, internet-connected toys and robots that teach kids to code are now commonplace. But Osmo, an early entrant in IoT toys, is pulling ahead of the pack with funding and partnerships with top names in the field.
Specifically, Osmo has raised $24 million in new venture funding from Mattel, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Collab+Sesame, the venture fund run in partnership by New… Read More